Julia von Eichel – 325 Broome Street

Lucien Terras Inc. is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Julia von Eichel. The exhibition will be on view from May 1st through June 14th at 325 Broome Street 1W, between Bowery and Chrystie.

Julia von Eichel’s new series of wall sculptures marks a strong departure from her previous ethereal mylar and string constructions. For the six new pieces on view, von Eichel has constructed a complex armature with wood dowels, wiffle balls, string and thread that is tightly covered with gessoed silk. The amorphous shapes contrast with the labor-intensive technique, and the prickly surface exposed to the viewer conceals the inner structure, like a skin. The scale relates to body proportions of torsos but the anthropomorphic association remains secondary, as if the forms pulling away from the wall, wrapping in a corner, were organisms in growth. The pieces were first conceived by the artist as a means of consolation after a personal loss and are infused with a psychological content of expressions of personal grief. They continue a lineage of highly personal sculptural wall reliefs by female predecessors such as Lynda Benglis and Lee Bontecou. Like them, von Eichel is an inventor of her own techniques.

Julia von Eichel was born in St Gallen, Switzerland, and lives and works in New York. She has shown previously with Sara Meltzer Gallery and her most recent solo exhibition in 2014 was at the Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, which commissioned a series of plexiglass-encased wall constructions